CVE-2023-52530: wifi: mac80211: fix potential key use-after-free

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-03-02 · updated 2026-08-04
Weakness: CWE-416

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: fix potential key use-after-free When ieee80211_key_link() is called by ieee80211_gtk_rekey_add() but returns 0 due to KRACK protection (identical key reinstall), ieee80211_gtk_rekey_add() will still return a pointer into the key, in a potential use-after-free. This normally doesn't happen since it's only called by iwlwifi in case of WoWLAN rekey offload which has its own KRACK protection, but still better to fix, do that by returning an error code and converting that to success on the cfg80211 boundary only, leaving the error for bad callers of ieee80211_gtk_rekey_add().

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 4.14 before 5.4.285; from 5.5 before 5.10.288; from 5.11 before 5.15.169; from 5.16 before 6.1.57; from 6.2 before 6.5.7; 6.6-rc1, 6.6-rc2, 6.6-rc3, 6.6-rc4 — fixed in 5.10.288, 5.15.169, 5.4.285, 6.1.57, 6.5.7

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.288, 5.15.169, 5.4.285, 6.1.57. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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